Brooklyn Castle

With its appealing real-life cast of economically disadvantaged kids who become winners through hard work and risking their egos, "Brooklyn Castle" easily checkmates your inner cynic.

The documentary focuses on a handful of youngsters at Brooklyn's Intermediate School 138, which boasts an extraordinary success story. Though 65 percent of its students come from families below the poverty line, I.S. 138 has won more national chess championships than any other junior high school.

Among the youngsters we meet are Rochelle Ballantyne, who has an excellent chance of becoming the first female African American chess master; Pobo Efekoro, a large, amiable, outgoing kid who's a powerhouse over the board and finds the time to run for class president; and Patrick Johnston, who is fighting ADHD and has more modest goals than the top players - he simply wants to learn how to focus better and avoid being the team's cellar dweller.

For many of these kids, some of them children of recent immigrants, succeeding at chess has a practical end - it may pave the way to better high schools and colleges. Director Katie Dellamaggiore makes it clear that chess is much more than a game for these players - family expectations and their own futures are involved, so losing a game can be devastating.

There's additional drama in the form of cuts to school programs following the 2008 economic downturn, which threaten the team's ability to travel to important out-of-state tournaments. In fact, Efekoro campaigns on a promise to fight the cuts.

The school's chess coach and vice principal, John Galvin, obviously cares deeply for these kids, as does the team's main teacher, Elizabeth Vicary, who works with her charges as often as seven times a week. She explains that part of the value in playing and studying chess is that there are no right answers; rather, it's a question of developing strategies that make sense in the face of great uncertainty.

You might hope for a bit more depth on the kids Dellamaggiore profiles - perhaps she could have homed in on, say, two of them - but this is really nitpicking. The film is well made and genuinely inspirational.